A lawsuit filed against a former third-grade teacher recently convicted of kissing a student claims that David Eugene Grey used his teaching position to prey on the “emotionally vulnerable” Nipomo student and the Lucia Mar Unified School District did nothing to prevent it.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, accuses Grey, a Santa Maria resident, of sexual assault and battery, intentional inflection of emotional distress and negligence, and seeks unspecified damages.

Grey, 70, was convicted July 19 of misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child for French-kissing the then 9-year-old female student in his locked classroom at the end of the 2006 school year.

The incident occurred at Nipomo's Dana Elementary School, where Grey had taught since the early 1990s after transferring from Nipomo Elementary School.

The student's mother filed the suit, which also seeks reimbursement for medical and healthcare expenses for her daughter, who has suffered “severe emotional distress and mental suffering” since Grey kissed her against her will, according to the lawsuit.

Calls and e-mails to Nigel Whitehead, the Nipomo attorney representing the girl's mother in the suit, weren't returned by press time.

The lawsuit also claims the student viewed Grey as a “surrogate father figure” and that he used his position of authority to assault her.

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“Grey's conduct in picking plaintiff up, placing his hands on either side of her face and kissing her on the lips, combined with (his) position of authority, intimidated plaintiff and was an offensive, objectionable touching,” the lawsuit reads.

Prior to his resignation from Lucia Mar Unified School District on June 7, 2006, Grey had been employed with the district since August 1982.

The suit also accuses Lucia Mar of negligent hiring, training and supervision, negligent retention and negligence for keeping Grey on staff after he was investigated in 1990 for “inappropriate physical contact” with several of his female students at Nipomo Elementary.

Five female students alleged Grey “rubbed” their buttocks at various times throughout that school year and called them his “girlfriends” and referred to himself as their “boyfriend.”

Sid Richison, Lucia Mar assistant superintendent of personnel, said the district hadn't been served with the lawsuit as of Monday morning, so he couldn't specifically comment on it.

The suit claims Lucia Mar didn't do enough to protect the student from being abused by Grey, who the district knew had behaved inappropriately with students at Nipomo Elementary.

The suit says Grey was counseled by district staff about his behavior after the June 1990 incident.

Richison said he couldn't comment on the alleged incident and whether Grey was counseled because of privacy laws relating to personnel records.

The suit also alleges the school district was negligent when it hired Grey because psychological testing wasn't conducted, which, if it had been, would have revealed “the fact that Grey was likely to engage in inappropriate sexual conduct with students,” the lawsuit reads.

Lucia Mar doesn't require psychological testing as a prerequisite to working for the district, Richison said.

“I have serious reservations with psychological evaluations and basing someone's future employment (on the results),” Richison said. “They can be valuable, and they can be incredibly dangerous. They aren't predictive of future behavior.”

Grey's sentencing hearing on the criminal conviction, where he faces a maximum sentence of a year in County Jail and possibly being required to register as a sex offender, is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 20, in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court.

Senior staff writer April

Charlton can be reached at

489-4206, Ext. 5016, or acharlton

@santamariatimes.com.

August 14, 2007